Mild R. Sam/Jack established, more moping than angst. Takes place in S9, but there are no spoilers beyond their jobs. No canon-breaking. Thanks: Karen.
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit.
Jack makes a show of checking his watch, though there’s no one to witness the performance. It’s 23:08. Put another way, it’s fifty-two minutes before midnight on Friday, and his phone call with the Chinese ambassador is chugging into its second hour. Does the man not sleep, or is he on a weird schedule so he can talk with the bigwigs in Beijing? Or — and Jack knows the answer to this — is he just really mad?
On the other end of the line, Ambassador Jin is reading pages of the international agreement word for word. The Chinese, along with the British, the French, and the Egyptians, want their own fighter wing in the F-302 program. The President decided he couldn’t grant one without granting them all, and that’s not likely to happen soon. So here Jack sits, having a conversation he’s already had three times today.
Jack’s administrative aide, Lieutenant Morelli, peeks around the corner with an encouraging but nervous smile. Jack knows he’s radiating impatience, or tension, or anger, or all three, and feels sorry for the kid. He covers the mouthpiece and says, “Go home already.” Morelli disappears back to the outer office while Jack tries to pick up the thread again. He knows the agreement by rote, but he couldn’t guess which paragraphs he just heard.
If he stays on the phone any longer, it can only end in an international incident. Why anybody thought he was the person for this job, Jack can’t imagine. He waits for Jin to take a breath.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Ambassador,” Jack says. “I’m going to have to cut this short to get to an appointment.” Which, at forty-four minutes before midnight, makes it sound like he’s going to see a call girl, but whatever. Jack’s appointment is blonde and brilliant and no doubt already asleep in his bed, and Jack hasn’t seen her in three weeks. They planned to have dinner at seven. He’s already called twice to apologize. “It is Friday,” he says.
The ambassador stops up short. “Yes, of course, I understand, General,” he says in a voice that makes it clear he doesn’t. “I would not wish to interrupt your weekend. I will speak with you tomorrow.”
“No, I’m sorry, Mr. Ambassador, I’m out of the office until Tuesday. I’ll have my assistant call yours to set up a time early next week, so we can work this out,” which is exactly what he told the French, British, and Egyptian ambassadors. He’s not looking forward to Tuesday. “And I do apologize.”
Jin accepts his dismissal, if a bit haughtily. Ambassadors. Jack hates ambassadors. Jack has always hated ambassadors.
The second Jack hangs up, Morelli is back. “The car’s waiting, General.” He looks a little too chipper for forty-one minutes before midnight. Morelli reads and summarizes the daily reports from the SGC before Jack ever sees them; he certainly knows when SG-1 is on downtime. And Jack doesn’t like talking to his staff when they know he’s planning on having sex as soon as he gets home. It’s distracting.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. And remember, no calls unless something’s blowing up.” This is Jack’s new battle plan and it had damn well better work. He stands, thinking. “Literally blowing up. Figurative blowups Davis can handle.”
“Yes, sir,” Morelli says. “No calls.”
“None. Not a single one,” Jack says. Repetition is key. “And take at least a day yourself, will you?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jack knows the kid will be here every day just the same. Overachievers are his lot in life.
He pulls on his jacket and straightens his tie, not that it matters. He could show up in regulation tighty-whiteys, drool in the backseat, and pick his nose, and none of the sergeants assigned to ferry him around would say a word but “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir.”
He so never wanted to be the big important guy who couldn’t drive himself because he had too much work to do on the way.
“Have a good weekend, sir.”
Jack just says, “Hmm.”
The porch light is on, Jack notices as they round the corner onto his street, and he starts to feel a little less pissed off. He leaves it on himself when he knows he’ll be home late, but when somebody does it for him it’s different. Better.
Jack bids the sergeant goodnight and tells him to take a day off, too. As always, the car doesn’t leave until Jack’s safely locked inside. He stands at the front window, peering through the blinds. As if the dangers Jack spends his days worrying about need a key. Or a door.
The house is always quiet, even with people in it. Jack strips off his dress blues on his way upstairs, turning out lights as he goes, and lays the uniform out on the guest room bed. He’ll deal with it later, preferably Tuesday. Then he cleans up in the hall bathroom, trying to be quiet even though her ears are as well trained as his. Finally he slides into bed beside Carter.
She rolls over to face him. “Hi,” she says sleepily. Sleepy is a good look on her.
“I’m sorry,” he says. Three weeks since he’s seen her, and that was just one night, with a late return through the gate for her and an early flight for him. They’d had about seven hours, Jack calculated on the plane back to Washington, and immediately wished he hadn’t. “Really sorry.”
“You already said that.” She smiles. “It’s okay, Jack.”
She smells like his shampoo and she’s wearing one of his old t-shirts. She usually sleeps in them — his t-shirt drawer is losing volume by the month — though he’s all for her going to bed naked. I get cold, she said. Anyway you sleep in your underwear. He pointed out that that didn’t count because he didn’t find looking at himself naked to be particularly hot.
He presses a kiss just above her forehead, his thumb encountering the butterfly tape on her right cheek. He knows one of her wrists is wrapped, too; she sprained it. He knows this from the mission reports from P3C-298. They haven’t had enough phone time to get into the details.
“Does it still hurt?” He finds the bad wrist under the sheets and touches the bandage lightly, then brings his fingers down to hover over hers.
“No. A little sore. It’ll be fine in a few days.” She yawns. “What kept you?”
Jack’s sure it’s curiosity and not irritation, but for a second he wonders. “Oh, everybody and his dog wants a couple dozen 302s. I’ll tell you in the morning.”
She curves her body closer to his, one leg quietly slipping between his knees. “Of course they do. They’re the best toys ever.”
“And you’re not allowed to talk to any ambassadors. Or their dogs.”
“I’ll try not to blurt it out at my next state dinner.”
“Perfect.”
He can feel her waking up, not boneless anymore. She steals her hand back and slips it just under the hem of his shorts, kissing him quickly on the lips. “How tired are you?”
Pretty damn tired, but not used to the luxury of maybe tomorrow. “I can be awake.”
She takes over, shoving him onto his back and straddling his hips; Jack watches her pull him out of his boxers, half wishing she’d take the t-shirt off but not concerned enough to do anything about it.
He’s still thinking about the Chinese ambassador.
He wakes up at 8:30, practically noon by Jack’s reckoning. Sure, he feigns laziness, but he had early to bed, early to rise drilled into him at the Academy, just like Carter. He takes a quick shower and stumbles downstairs in search of coffee.
The smell gets stronger as he nears the kitchen. Carter’s at the table, poking at her laptop and eating caramel popcorn for breakfast. He opens his mouth to chide her for it, but remembers just in time that he doesn’t have so much as a Pop-Tart in the house. Most days, his driver hands him coffee, and an overeager lackey brings him a full tray from the mess so he can pick and choose what he wants. Jack never intended to be that guy, either.
She looks up as he enters and gives him a bright smile. “Good morning.”
“Morning.” He grabs the biggest mug he can find and fills it, before sitting next to her and reaching for the box of popcorn. “Give me some of that.”
She blocks him with her shoulder, but lets him win. “You sleep well?” she asks, picking through a handful for the peanuts. She likes them best.
“I didn’t even hear you get up.” The sugar hurts one of Jack’s molars. He shifts on the seat; it’s one of those family-style breakfast booths and the benches are hardwood. A lackey picked out the house for him, too.
“I’m stealthy.”
“You are.” He wraps an arm around her waist and slides her closer. “What’s that?”
“P4C-708. It’s boring. I’m almost done.”
Jack remembers that one. Teal’c’s report was turned in an hour after they stepped back through the gate, and it stated, simply, Nothing of interest occurred. At all. Landry didn’t bother to demand a rewrite.
“You’d better be almost done,” Jack says. “Work-free weekend, remember?”
She turns her head and grins at him. “I figured it didn’t count if you were asleep.”
“Sure you did.” He hits control-S, clicks the laptop shut, and shoves it across the table. Then he lets his head rest on hers, and stays there.
Carter’s non-injured hand finds his free one. “You okay?”
There are a lot of ways he could answer that, some less honest than others. “I hate ambassadors.”
She grabs another handful of popcorn. “You did seem a little down last night.”
“Is that a comment on my performance?”
Her first response is a dry, one-syllable laugh. Her second is, “You don’t have to tell me.”
Jack sits up straight, leaning back into the booth. “It’s not that,” he says. “You know I didn’t want the job.”
She looks at him with soft eyes. “I know. I thought it might be getting better, the last time we saw each other.”
“I was in Colorado.”
She turns fully, pulling one knee up onto the bench, and clasps his neck. Her thumb rubs his jaw silently.
Dammit, they had a plan. Jack liked the plan. He would retire; he wasn’t objective enough to run the SGC anyway. She’d keep the team, they’d have nights and weekends and maybe a dog. It was a good plan.
But then George Hammond got himself appointed vice president, and it all went to hell. Plan B involved Jack in Washington and Carter in Nevada; they’d at least be on the same planet, and she could see Cassie more often. But Plan B crashed and burned, too, and Plan C is the kind of absentee relationship he swore he’d never have again. Carter’s been back at the SGC for six weeks, and this is the second time he’s seen her.
Jack misses the damn plan. But what he says is, “What moron thought I would make a good diplomat, anyway?”
Carter pretends to think about it. “That would be the President,” she says.
“See if I vote for him next time.”
“You are the best qualified,” she says, and he is. But the job isn’t qualified for him. Or something.
He decides this conversation can wait for their second morning together, and drums his fingers on her knee. She jerks away. It’s the only place she’s ticklish.
“So, Carter,” he says, “what are we doing today? Besides eating something that actually qualifies as food.”
She smiles a crooked smile. “You’re sure you don’t have to work?”
“As long as nobody picks today for the alien invasion.”
“That’s always iffy.”
Jack says, “Uh-huh,” and Carter thinks for a long time. He can tell by the way her eyes move that she’s contemplating and discarding possibilities one after another. He wonders if she came here with ideas, or if she was sure there’d be no time for more than a dinner out or two. And because the thought of Carter not planning ahead short-circuits his brain, he figures it must be the latter.
“Crabcakes,” she announces finally.
“The Maryland kind?”
“It’s not even an hour in the car.”
“No, that’s fine. I just expected you to drag me off to the Air and Space Museum or something.”
“Oh, be quiet. You love the Air and Space Museum.”
“The White House tour, then.”
She snorts, and he pulls her up by her good hand.
He talks her into driving, with the argument that she lived here for two years and the furthest he’s driven since the promotion is the mile to the nearest shopping center. Besides, he likes watching her drive his truck.
They get Egg McMuffins and end up, after a couple detours, in a little town west of Easton. Carter picks the busier of the two seafood places two doors down from each other. So they wait for a table, drink milkshakes, order fried clams and crabcakes and share, disputing the merits of both. The onion rings are better than the fries. She won’t let him buy the shrink-wrapped cotton candy by the cash register, though.
Afterwards, she leads him to a half-mile-long beach in a rocky cove. It’s October, and it rained yesterday; the wind is high and the surf is rough. Her hair blows in a wild halo around her head, her eyes squinting reflexively against the sand.
He pictures her in a bikini, something he’s never seen, and grabs her hand. Damn, he’s the luckiest guy on the planet. He’d accepted that she was moving on, had even been happy for her, somewhat. And then, as far as Jack can determine, Jacob said Shanahan was nice, Shanahan tried to buy a house, and Jack’s world slipped upside down.
The high water mark is only twenty-five feet or so from the parking lot. They walk along it, sometimes veering closer to the waves, without saying much. Driftwood and seaweed dot the sand, from the recent storm.
Carter takes her hand back, curling her fingers into the sleeves of her jacket. “Cold,” she says. She never complained about that in the field, ever, but the real Sam Carter, the one who wears skirts and watches the Cartoon Network and curls up next to him at night, needs a portable furnace.
“Want to go back?” he asks. They’ve been walking for a little more than half an hour.
“No. Just cold.”
He pulls her into a loose hug, grinning stupidly into her hair.
“Better,” she says.
Still grinning, he tugs her good hand and starts backing towards the water.
“You wouldn’t,” she says.
“No?”
“You’re wearing your favorite boots.”
“Boots can be replaced.” He’s at the edge now, foam swelling at his heels and splashing his jeans.
“I have the car keys.”
“So you do.”
“You’re bluffing,” she says, changing her strategy. “I dare you to take your shoes off and walk right in. Without me.”
“And if I do?”
She thinks. “I won’t leave you stranded in Middle of Nowhere, Maryland?”
He takes a step backwards, pulling her with him, and she yelps. His boots are waterproof, but he knows her expensive shoes aren’t. He also knows she’s toying with him as much as he’s toying with her — cold feet aren’t much of a threat in their universe. “You’ll have to do better than that, Carter,” he says. “I have lackeys. With cars.”
She makes a break for it, jerking away so fast and so hard that she catches him off guard, and she gets about six feet before he captures her arm and they both tumble into the sand.
Jack scurries to his hands and knees over her. “Hi,” he says. Carter makes a show of shoving at his chest, her bandaged wrist lying above her head, out of the way.
“Sand in my hair, damn you.”
“You’ve had worse.”
“This is true.”
He dips his head to kiss her, and her laughter vibrates against his lips.
Another quick Carter move, and he’s on his back, with handfuls of cool sand being poured into his hair. He’s not in active duty shape anymore and she is. “Cheater,” he says. She pins his arms out to the sides.
The wind whips past and her hair flies around her face. She’s going to go crazy when she sees a mirror. Jack can’t wait. “Let’s stay overnight,” he says.
Her eyes dart around. “Here?”
“Well, a roof would be good, but yeah.”
“But we don’t have any –”
“So we’ll buy I got crabs in Maryland t-shirts and wash our underwear in the sink.”
“You’ll wash our underwear in the sink.”
“That’s a yes, right?”
She frowns. “Are you sure you can? You don’t have to get back?”
“Carter. Work-free weekend.”
He can tell she’s still in I’ll believe it when I see it mode. She hesitates before saying, “Okay. Except for the crabs shirt.”
He laughs and leads her face down to his.
There’s a thump, and they both turn their heads to look. A long stick has landed a few feet away, and a panting, tail-wagging border collie pounces on it.
“Sorry!” a voice calls. Dog and stick disappear back in the same direction.
Carter scrambles to her feet. “Get up, get up!”
He does as ordered. “Ashamed to be seen with me?”
“When we’re wrestling on the ground like teenagers? Yes.” She fluffs her hair with her fingers to get the sand out.
Jack waves to the dog’s owners.
“Sorry about that,” says the woman with the stick. She and her friend both look a few years older than Jack. He wonders if they’re retired, and whether he should be jealous.
“Oh, it’s no problem,” Carter says. She bends over to scratch the dog’s head.
Jack shoves his hands in his pockets and says, “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know someplace we can stay around here, would you?”
After emergency shopping, dinner, and some laundry, they have little choice but to crawl into bed naked while their clothes dry on the radiator. That’s just fine with Jack. It’s only eight o’clock, but the fresh air and the wind have left him a little sleepy. He sits up against the pillows, with Carter lounging between his knees. He doesn’t bother trying to get the remote, busying himself with combing her hair through his fingers. It still smells like salt and fried clams, a record of their work-free day.
They never do this at his place, or at hers. There are always meetings to rush off to, planets to save by seven a.m., and as much sex as possible to be had within thirty-six hours. The last time they went away together was to his cabin, five months ago.
“Oh, ow.”
Jack looks up from his study of her hair to see that the remote’s stuck on porn. There’s a woman sitting on one guy’s dick, with another guy pumping into her from behind. That’s — Jack’s not quite ready to watch porn with Carter. Playing it out in the bedroom, sure, but he’s a little old-fashioned about this stuff. “Change the damn channel, Carter,” he says.
“But seriously. Wouldn’t you think there’d be a lot of problems with logistics? Hard to keep them from sliding out.”
And she knows he’s old-fashioned about porn. He makes a play for the remote but she’s quicker. “Give me that,” he says.
Carter wriggles between his legs. “Somebody likes it,” she says, with way too wide a smile in her voice.
The moans from the screen get louder.
“I’m male,” he says. “It’s completely involuntary.”
She starts caressing the outside of his thigh. “As long as you don’t expect me to do that, we could –”
“Nah,” he says. He drops his lips into her hair. “I’m good. Unless that was a subtle way of saying ‘I want you now.’”
She chuckles. “I’m good,” she says, lightly rubbing both of his knees.
“But will you see what else is on, already?”
She falls asleep on top of him half an hour later.
Jack’s cell phone rings, predictably, at two in the morning. He grabs it off the nightstand as Carter’s rumpled face appears from under the covers.
“What’s blowing up?” he says into the phone.
“Literally? Nothing, sir,” Paul Davis says. He sounds wide awake. How nice for him.
“I told you –”
Davis speaks right over him. “I’m sorry to disturb you, sir, but the President –”
Jack groans, for effect. “Tell him no.”
Carter snuggles closer, no doubt trying to calm Jack down.
“I’m not going to tell the President no, sir,” Davis says.
Smart-ass. The problem here is that Davis knew Jack before the damn stars, and picked up some of Jack’s own cues on dealing with generals. Jack wants to blame Davis for this, but can’t work up the righteous indignation. “No,” he says, scrubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “No, of course not. Did he say what it’s about?”
“France is threatening to pull out of the international agreement,” Davis says.
“Why does this not surprise me?”
“Because you’ve been working on the Stargate program for nine years, sir?”
“You’re a funny man, Davis.”
“General –”
“Yeah, yeah. I’ll call him right now.” Jack hangs up and looks at Carter, half asking for permission, and she shrugs. She probably assumed all along that the weekend would turn out like this. Damn.
She jerks her thumb at the door. “Do you want me to –”
“No, stay. I’m sorry, Carter.” He pulls on his new t-shirt and his still-damp boxers, and sits at the table by the window. The only person he likes talking to while naked is Carter.
It’s the President’s private line, and he answers on the first ring.
“With all due respect, Mr. President,” Jack says, “I thought I made it pretty clear I didn’t want to be disturbed.”
Hayes answers in his affable way. “Jack, Jack, diplomacy knows no schedule.”
“I didn’t ask to be a diplomat, sir.”
Behind him, Carter whispers, “Jack!”
But Hayes merely laughs. It’s a tight laugh, but it’s still a laugh. “I know you didn’t, Jack. You’re just a good sport. But I need you on this.”
Jack grinds his knuckles into his forehead and sighs. “Yes, sir.”
“Colonel Carter’s a fine officer, Jack,” Hayes says, lowering his voice. Jack hears a smirk. “The best we’ve got. She’ll understand.”
She will, and that makes it worse. She expects to have half a relationship. “If you don’t mind, sir, I’d rather not discuss –”
“Of course, of course. I’m sorry I brought it up.” That damn smirk is still in the President’s voice, though, and Jack reminds himself that his personal life is now a matter of public record. Among the public that has high enough clearance, anyway.
“France, sir?”
“The ambassador didn’t find your conversation to be satisfactory, Jack. I’ve been on the phone with Chirac for two hours.”
Then just give him the damn planes, Jack thinks. “They serious about pulling out?”
“They sure are. Britain came up in the conversation, too. I’m afraid they might be next.”
Jack looks over his shoulder at Carter. She’s pulled some book on the multiple universes theory out of her bag and looks thoroughly absorbed. “Can’t Hammond handle it?”
“He could, but it’d weaken your position, Jack.”
Jack’s not sure how much he cares. He’ll have to examine that thought in more detail later. “Look, sir, I’m not even in Washington. I can come back first thing in the –”
“No, no, don’t come back. I’ll just set up a conference call. You can back me up. How’s seven o’clock?”
When Jack hangs up, he turns the chair towards the bed and watches her until she looks up from her reading.
“What?” she asks.
“I’m sorry.”
“Jack, I understand. It’s all right.”
He shakes his head. It would be funny if it weren’t so disturbing. “Hayes said you’d say that.”
“What?”
“He said you were an excellent officer and you wouldn’t mind the interruption.”
Her eyes widen and her ears get a little pink. “Well, that’s … creepy.”
“And infuriating.” He flips the phone open and closed. Their room faces the water, though it’s a mile away, and a cold wind blows in through the window. “Nobody at the SGC gets on your case about this, do they?”
“About this? You mean us? No, of course not. Well, Daniel and Teal’c and Cameron –”
He smiles. “And they’d tease you anyway.”
“Sure. They think you’re much better teasing material than Pete was.” She turns onto her side, propping her head up with a fist. “You mean people at the Pentagon give you a hard time about it?”
“The Pentagon, the President. Hammond and Davis don’t. They know you too well.”
She seems speechless for a moment. “That shouldn’t surprise me after all these years,” she says. “Why didn’t you mention it?”
“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“But it makes you uncomfortable.”
He shrugs. “You know, it’s not like they’re questioning your virtue or anything. They’re probably afraid of you.”
“As they should be.”
“Just — it’s not so much what they say. It’s none of their business, Carter.”
“Jack, the position you’re in … nothing would ever truly be private. And I’m pretty high on the Pentagon radar, too.”
She’s right. Before Jack entered special ops training, the Air Force did a background check on Sara. It was just part of the job, then. He was moving up the ladder fast, and he didn’t think twice about it. He wonders now if Sara did. She was only his fiancée at the time.
“I liked the plan, Carter. I miss the plan.”
“Come back to bed.” She holds the covers up for him, but he doesn’t budge.
He stares at her. She’s taking this way too calmly. She usually does, which he would never have predicted about her.
Jack leans forward, elbows on knees. “Why doesn’t this stuff piss you off, Carter?”
“Do you want me to be angry?”
“Not angry. Maybe … less complaisant.”
“Less complaisant.”
“I just don’t get why you put up with this crap.”
She stares at him now. “You’re actually asking me to justify why I’m in this relationship?”
That does sound pretty dumb, and it’s not like he wants to give her any ideas about getting out. He spins the phone around in his palm.
“No,” he says. “I don’t know.” He hates his job. He hates Washington. He misses Carter and he misses his friends and he misses living in a house he likes, and he shouldn’t be taking it out on her. She’s the good part.
“I’m sorry,” he says, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “I’m not mad at you.”
“Glad to hear it,” she says, a little sharply.
“Sorry,” he says again. “Just, honestly, how can it not bug you? We get one weekend a month, if we’re lucky, and even that gets cut short most of the time.”
“Which I’m not crazy about, but I can live with. For now. It’s not like we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into, Jack.”
Jack sighs. “What happens when one of us can’t live with it anymore?” he asks.
“Then we’ll come up with Plan D. Now will you please get back in bed?”
He sets his watch alarm for 0600.
Before sunrise, they run down to the beach and back in two pairs of twenty-dollar running shoes from Wal-Mart. Carter gets antsy without her morning workout, and running with her is about the only exercise Jack gets.
The wind is lighter today and it looks like the sun will be warm. They stretch on the hotel porch and he kisses her goodbye, telling her to get some more sleep.
Three hours and one tentative agreement later, he collapses across from her at the table in their room. He’s sore from sitting in his truck that long.
Carter’s already showered and packed up what little they have in a shopping bag. She’s also been somewhere that sells magazines, because she’s reading a glossy interior design one. “How’d it go?” she asks, looking up at him.
“We agreed to train a dozen pilots from each nation and add an international wing to the F-302 program. They agreed to shut up.”
Her brow furrows. “Every country on the planet will want in on that.”
“Yup. I told Hayes he’d better offer it to them before they hear it through the grapevine.”
She nods, wincing a little, and he can tell he’s not going to like whatever news she has for him. “Jack, Landry called a little while ago. I need to go back.”
“So do I.”
She brightens.
“No, not home. The Pentagon. The agreement isn’t final and I need to talk it over with about fifty people before word gets out.”
Carter checks her watch. “Well, we’ve had almost thirty-six hours. I suppose that’s progress.” She stands and puts the magazine away, looking as unruffled as she ever does, but Jack’s sure he can see something in her eyes.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Of course. Landry’s got a plane waiting at Andrews. You can drop me off on the way. When’s your next meeting?”
Jack sits back in the chair, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankles. “Come on, Carter, admit it. This bugs you. You’re pissed off.”
“I am not pissed off.”
He says nothing, challenging her with one raised eyebrow. She rolls her eyes in response. “Okay, yes, I’m annoyed that we have to go,” she says.
“Aha! And?”
“And I always wish we had more time. You must know that, Jack.”
“Of course I do.”
She rolls her eyes again. “You just wanted to hear me say it,” she says, and he doesn’t disagree. Then she checks the time once more, and hesitates before speaking. “But I don’t see any point in getting all worked up over it when we are together. Do you know that you do this every time? You’re going to drive me crazy, Jack.”
“Every time?” he asks, even as he thinks back and realizes she’s right. He complains, they get interrupted, he complains a lot more.
“Almost every time. You were okay a few weeks ago, but then it was only a few hours.”
“Seven. And we were in Colorado.”
“You counted?”
“I subtracted. I didn’t like the answer.” He reaches for her hand and tugs until she steps closer. “Why didn’t you tell me I was driving you nuts?”
“I told you. I’d rather spend the time we have on other things.” And then she admits, “It’s not easy to hold myself to that sometimes. I think too much, remember?”
Jack can imagine how much will power it must take for her to let it all roll off her back, though he’s not sure her way is any better than his. He suspects he’s just gotten another clue why they were both single for so long. Aside from the obvious, of course. “There are more interesting ways to entertain ourselves,” he says.
They share a long look, and Jack thinks it’s too bad they don’t have time to engage in a little private porn.
“We’d better get going,” she says, swinging his arm. “Did you get any breakfast?”
“No,” he says. “And I need a shower. I’m disgusting.”
“There’s a little market around the corner. I’ll find you something to eat and be back in a few minutes.”
Jack realizes, as he stands under steaming water, that he never even asked what the emergency at the SGC was.
The drive is quiet until they get close to the base. After the first sign on the interstate, he notices Carter tapping her fingers on the wheel. And she doesn’t fidget.
“What?” he asks.
She glances at him. “What?”
He slants his eyes toward the wheel, but figures out quickly that she’s looking at the road again. Which is good, because she’s capable of driving like a lunatic.
“Your fingers,” he says, jerking his chin at them. “What’s up?”
She frowns. “No, it’s nothing, really. I was just thinking that maybe it was good for us to have some distance in the beginning. I went too fast with Pete –”
“Carter –”
“– and it would have been even easier to do that with you.”
“Carter, I would so not have had a problem with going fast.”
“I know. I wouldn’t either. But maybe it’s better that we didn’t, right away, at least.”
Something in her voice makes him pick apart that last sentence. “So slow was good early on, but fast might be okay now?”
“It might.” She glances at him again, with bright eyes and the shadow of a smile. “There are a few logistical problems, though.”
“Just a few,” he says. She’s quiet then, and for a while he just watches the scenery, or what passes for it, fly by.
“You know,” he says finally, as Carter takes the exit for Andrews, “the first year we were married, Sara and I were only together for about three months. Total.”
He catches a flicker of surprise before she covers it up. “I’m not Sara,” she says.
“It’s the same thing.”
“No, it isn’t.” She doesn’t look up at him. “You had to hide most of your life from her. You don’t with me. Whether we’re living together or not.”
They pull up to the security station and flash their IDs, and Jack can’t help thinking she’s missed part of the equation. He’s just not sure which part.
It’s dark again when Jack gets home. He’s spent four hours at the White House, two on the phone with ambassadors and heads of state, one with Davis to catch Jack up on the situation at the SGC, and three more with Pentagon types who got called in on their days off, too. Jack feels no guilt for sharing the misery.
He dumps their stuff by the door — Carter didn’t take anything but her cell phone — and turns on some lights in the kitchen. The TV’s next. And there’s still nothing in the refrigerator.
It takes him half an hour to decide not to order pizza. He stands in the middle of the living room munching stale corn chips, and looks around at the house he didn’t pick out. He left his houseplants behind in Colorado, with Carter, and most of his books with her and Daniel. The only pictures he’s put up are one of his team, on the fridge, one of Charlie, by his bed, and a couple shots Cassie sent from college, tacked up above his desk. One’s of her and Carter, from the day Cassie moved into her dorm; Jack was supposed to join them, but he had to bail at the last minute. He hasn’t seen Cassie or Daniel or Teal’c in months.
He takes a shower and settles into bed with the remote and a pile of reports. The phone rings just as he starts to doze off. He finds it with his eyes still shut and his glasses crooked on his nose. “O’Neill and this had better be good.”
There’s a little breath of air, a proto-laugh, and he knows he’s safe. “Were you asleep?” Carter asks.
“No.” He sits up and fixes his glasses, turns off the TV. “Working on it.”
“Sorry.”
“Anytime. Everything okay?”
“We fixed it,” she says simply. Some magnetic energy field had caused the gate on P3C-912 to break down, leaving SG-3 and SG-16 stranded with no shelter. And Siler, Davis had explained, had the weekend off. “Dr. Lam’s keeping them overnight, but they’re fine.”
Jack stores that information for use in the morning. He hears a splash, and then another. “You’re taking a bath, aren’t you?”
“Just got in.”
“Jesus, Carter, don’t do that to me.”
She splashes around some more, getting comfortable. He knows because she sometimes lets him watch, or get in if he’s been really good.
“Rough day?” she asks.
“Started out okay. Went downhill from there.”
He hears her take a deep breath, in and out, and he can almost see her bathroom full of steam. “It didn’t fall through, did it?” she says.
“No, everything’s signed and nobody’s out for my head. Let’s talk about something else.”
She launches into an update on her new research into the Ancient base-eight math and its potential uses in engineering and aeronautics. It took her about three weeks to figure out that he actually likes listening to her, when they’re not about to die.
Carter signs off when her bath gets cold, and Jack goes to pee. He’s sleepy and more relaxed than he’s been all day, and he thinks about how they were together just twelve hours ago, and they’ll be lucky to see each other again before Thanksgiving. And that will get interrupted, too, and one of them will have to jump on a plane, and as always, they’ll barely have time to say goodbye.
Jack heads back to his room and sits on the edge of the bed, in the dark. Light from the street glints off his one framed photo.
“You get used to it,” he heard Sara say once. They were at a Christmas party on base, Charlie home with a babysitter, and Sara was talking with a couple of the younger wives. “You learn not to assume you’re the first priority.” At the time, Jack had just returned from a four-month detachment to Colombia, and he thought Sara was lucky he didn’t tell her everything. Or anything. The priority part had flown over his head.
Jack’s fifty-three now. He was alone for ten years before Carter, and he’s the luckiest guy on the planet. Why is his priority still 1,500 miles away from his luck?
The phone is still on his pillow. He picks it up and hits speed dial eleven, to tell Morelli to get Jack in to see the President as early as possible tomorrow.
Speed dial one sounds out of breath when she answers, after three and a half rings. “Jack? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he says, fighting a big grin. He was sure he’d get voicemail. He’ll have to give the President at least a month, Jack thinks. No more than two. And he’s already got a partial list of replacements for his position; he started it his first day on the job. It’s in the top drawer of his desk.
“So, Carter,” he says, “about that living together thing you mentioned. Would that be too fast?”
The title is from Death Cab for Cutie’s “The New Year.”
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